System and method of providing targeted advertisements from subscribers of directory services

ABSTRACT

Disclosed are systems, computer-readable medium and a method for delivering advertisements to user devices. The method includes storing first data associated with online and physical activity of plurality of customers, storing second data associated with current status of plurality of advertisers, matching a customer with an advertiser based on analysis of the first data and the second data and delivering an advertisement to a device associated with the matched customers online and physical activity. The on-line and physical activity is captured by a plurality of devices including a mobile device via a plurality of sensors.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to advertising a user device, morespecifically to a system and method of tracking and mapping customeranalytics across multiple screens to match advertisements fromsubscribers of directory services with customers.

2. Introduction

Companies such as Google® and Yahoo!® have made a business of trackingcustomer searches and selling advertisements to customers based on thatmodel. It is well known that television stations make money sellingtarget advertising for various shows although they do not know whospecifically is watching any particular show. Certain rating proceduresare commonly used to gather data about characteristics of theindividuals that watch particular shows to aid advertisers in targetingtheir ads as well as their cost structures. However, there is still muchuncertainty in the quality of consumer data and whether televisionadvertising matches the intended consumer group to its maximumpotential.

Cell phones are being improved wherein the owner of the phone may beknown and some phones may provide a mobile television capability butthey may not know specific details about the customer patterns. With theimplementation of more advanced cell phone and portable devices as wellas an improving ability to identify about user's buying habit, what isneeded in the art is an improved system and method of using known dataabout the customer to target advertisements to a particular customer.

SUMMARY

Additional features and advantages of the invention will be set forth inthe description which follows, and in part will be obvious from thedescription, or may be learned by practice of the invention. Thefeatures and advantages of the invention may be realized and obtained bymeans of the instruments and combinations particularly pointed out inthe appended claims. These and other features of the present inventionwill become more fully apparent from the following description andappended claims, or may be learned by the practice of the invention asset forth herein.

Disclosed are systems, methods, and computer-readable media forproviding advertisements to user devices. An exemplary method of theembodiment includes storing first data associated with online andphysical activity of a plurality of customers, storing second dataassociated with current status of a plurality of advertisers, matching acustomer with an advertiser based on analysis of the first data and thesecond data and delivering an advertisement to a device associated withthe matched customers online and physical movement activity. The firstdata may be gathered through multiple devices and/or a mobile device viauser interaction with the device(s) or some other sensing mechanism suchas GPS and so forth.

An example of an application of the invention is the following. Assume aperson is browsing for a new car and they receive on their portabledevice an advertisement from “Bob's Ford” as that person is driving pastthe dealership. The advertiser is a subscriber of directory servicesfrom entities such as yellowpages.com. The advertisement can actuallyprovide directions to that dealership or a welcome to stop in while theyare in the neighborhood. Since a direction of travel may be known aboutthe user, the advertisement might know to say “Turn right in 2 blocks.”The ability of providing such a focused advertisement is based on theability to match the advertiser (Bob's Ford) with the consumer as wellas with other ancillary data. When the advertiser is a subscriber to adirectory service such as yellowpages.com, the information about thesubscriber such as their location, their products, their advertisingstrategy, and so forth enables a networking company to utilize thatinformation as well as other information about the user such as theability to understand that the user has been browsing for cars and isdriving through a certain neighborhood, to match up the advertiser withthe customer. This advertising may be done either via a portable deviceof the user or may also be inserted in, if the timing is appropriate, toa particular time slot through the standard AM/FM radio or satelliteradio of the user. Previously, the user would have perhaps been drivingthrough the appropriate neighborhood but the advertiser (Bob's Ford) mayhave placed an ad just in general in an advertising slot on the radio oron her IPTV during a scheduled commercial time based on which may or maynot have been convenient for the specific location of the user beingnear the dealership. The invention utilizes information drawn from theIP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) and combines the technologies drawntherefrom with yellow page type technology and data regarding subscriberbusinesses such as location, current inventory, and so forth withinformation about who is looking for the particular products andservices of a business. It is assumed that one of skill in the artunderstands the IMS system. Several references to this system includethe 3G IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS), Merging the Internet and CellularWorlds, by Camarillo and Garcia-Martin, Wiley 2006 and the IMS IPMultimedia Concepts and Services, by Poikselka, Mayer, Khartabil, andNeimi, Wiley, 2006.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

In order to describe the manner in which the above-recited and otheradvantages and features of the invention can be obtained, a moreparticular description of the invention briefly described above will berendered by reference to specific embodiments thereof which areillustrated in the appended drawings. Understanding that these drawingsdepict only exemplary embodiments of the invention and are not thereforeto be considered to be limiting of its scope, the invention will bedescribed and explained with additional specificity and detail throughthe use of the accompanying drawings in which:

FIG. 1 illustrates a system embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 2 illustrates the general network associated with the invention;

FIG. 3 illustrates further details regarding network elements associatedwith the invention;

FIG. 4 further illustrates various network aspects of the invention;

FIG. 5 illustrates a further aspect of network elements associated withthe invention; and

FIG. 6 illustrates a method embodiment of the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Various embodiments of the invention are discussed in detail below.While specific implementations are discussed, it should be understoodthat this is done for illustration purposes only. A person skilled inthe relevant art will recognize that other components and configurationsmay be used without parting from the spirit and scope of the invention.

With reference to FIG. 1, an exemplary system includes a general-purposecomputing device 100, including a processing unit (CPU) 120 and a systembus 110 that couples various system components including the systemmemory such as read only memory (ROM) 140 and random access memory (RAM)150 to the processing unit 120. Other system memory 130 may be availablefor use as well. It can be appreciated that the invention may operate ona computing device with more than one CPU 120 or on a group or clusterof computing devices networked together to provide greater processingcapability. The system bus 110 may be any of several types of busstructures including a memory bus or memory controller, a peripheralbus, and a local bus using any of a variety of bus architectures. Abasic input/output (BIOS) stored in ROM 140 or the like, may provide thebasic routine that helps to transfer information between elements withinthe computing device 100, such as during start-up. The computing device100 further includes storage devices such as a hard disk drive 160, amagnetic disk drive, an optical disk drive, tape drive or the like. Thestorage device 160 is connected to the system bus 110 by a driveinterface. The drives and the associated computer readable media providenonvolatile storage of computer readable instructions, data structures,program modules and other data for the computing device 100. The basiccomponents are known to those of skill in the art and appropriatevariations are contemplated depending on the type of device, such aswhether the device is a small, handheld computing device, a desktopcomputer, or a computer server.

Although the exemplary environment described herein employs the harddisk, it should be appreciated by those skilled in the art that othertypes of computer readable media which can store data that areaccessible by a computer, such as magnetic cassettes, flash memorycards, digital versatile disks, cartridges, random access memories(RAMs), read only memory (ROM), a cable or wireless signal containing abit stream and the like, may also be used in the exemplary operatingenvironment.

To enable user interaction with the computing device 100, an inputdevice 190 represents any number of input mechanisms, such as amicrophone for speech, a touch-sensitive screen for gesture or graphicalinput, keyboard, mouse, motion input, speech and so forth. The deviceoutput 170 can also be one or more of a number of output mechanismsknown to those of skill in the art. In some instances, multimodalsystems enable a user to provide multiple types of input to communicatewith the computing device 100. The communications interface 180generally governs and manages the user input and system output. There isno restriction on the invention operating on any particular hardwarearrangement and therefore the basic features here may easily besubstituted for improved hardware or firmware arrangements as they aredeveloped.

For clarity of explanation, the illustrative system embodiment ispresented as comprising individual modules functional blocks (includingfunctional blocks labeled as a “processor”). The functions these blocksrepresent may be provided through the use of either shared or dedicatedhardware, including, but not limited to, hardware capable of executingsoftware. For example the functions of one or more processors presentedin FIG. 1 may be provided by a single shared processor or multipleprocessors. (Use of the term “processor” should not be construed torefer exclusively to hardware capable of executing software.)Illustrative embodiments may comprise microprocessor and/or digitalsignal processor (DSP) hardware, read-only memory (ROM) for storingsoftware performing the operations discussed below, and random accessmemory (RAM) for storing results. Very large scale integration (VLSI)hardware embodiments, as well as custom VLSI circuitry in combinationwith a general purpose DSP circuit, may also be provided. But, it isunderstood that a system, device or apparatus embodiment, which mayinclude various modules or blocks, is not software per se but requireseach module or block to encompass software controlling one or morehardware components such as a CPU and/or a display.

As noted above, the IMS basic information about a user may be identifiedfrom the IMS system. FIG. 2 illustrates a network 200 which includesvarious components. For example, in the customer endpoints section thereare a variety of potential endpoints which may communicate with anetwork 202 which includes security and DRM services. For example,television home entertainment systems 214, a customer phone 212, ahandheld PDA 210, a portable phone 208, a home computer 206 or a laptopcomputer 204 may all communicate with a network 202. Similarly, feature216 illustrates the destination in clicks which may include businessdirectories such as Google or Yellow Pages. The user's interaction withthese various web pages may illustrate how a browser or a portal may beused to track customer interest in products much like Yahoo and Googledo today. There may be content which may be received through websitessuch as Netflix which can identify movies you have rated or seen 218 ormusic you have listened to 220. The data associated with thisinformation is also available in the network 202. By various networkdevices being registered with an IMS system, the system may use thecustomer ID from an IPTV or other device and may know what the customeris watching. Specific times or during a commercial, the system candirect specific customer content to them. In addition, if the customeruses a cell phone 208 as a channel changer or content controller in, forexample, a home entertainment system 214, then the system may know viathe IMS system what this specific person is watching. For example, twosiblings may each have a cell phone that can be used to control the T.V.We know the person and location of the mobile user as well as theprogramming they may be watching. The system will also know the locationof a Yellow Page advertiser 216 and many details about their business.By combining all this information and performing network analytics, thepresent system enables advertisers to provide focused advertising tocustomers who both show an interest and may either be living ortraveling through an area.

Also shown in FIG. 2 are the customer relationship management node 224and next generation CTI analytics 222 which organize this informationtogether to provide the targeted advertising. FIG. 3 illustrates furtherdetails about creating a user profile. Data is stored in a customerprofile database 326, which can be captured from a portal such as a webbrowser 306 or correlated to a set top box portal 324 and or the mobiledevice portal 316. The customer profile may also provide granulatedlinks of information. For example, the system can show what products theuser purchased but not show all of the websites they visited in route topurchasing a certain product. The user is in control and is willing togive up certain private information for their benefit, but the systemsupports the ability to be in control of how much information isprocessed. An entity or system that provides the functionality hereinmay or may not ask for permission or interaction from the user in orderto provide the particular granulated level of information with regardsto a user's habits or physical movement in terms of providinginformation to a customer profile and to advertisers for determiningwhat advertisements to push to the customer. Thus, in one aspect, anentity may seek permission from the customer in terms of the privacyrelated data that it receives and in another aspect the entity may notask for such permission.

A household of people of course would preferably be known in the portalassociated with the web browser 306 associated with a common computer inthe home and/or the set top box 324/322. The location and informationabout an individual is primarily known via a mobile device portalassociated with mobile device 316. Where the individual device 316 canbe used as a remote control for a set top box portal 322/324, the systemmay also known who is watching a television program as well asinformation collected at the web portal 306 can be used to gaininformation on each exact individual as well. The system builds andcontinuously updates the profile database 326 such that the customerdatabase knows the individual interest and present location andreal-time behavior (such as being on the phone, watching TV, and wheresuch information is stored in various databases 308, 318, 320).

For example, the web browser provides a portal 304 that updatesinformation such as the sessions, the user ID, the history and the time.The World Wide Web 302 is also in the center of providing communicationbetween these various elements. A portal 312 may be used to communicateinformation via a WAP 314 protocol (or other type protocol as would beknown in the art) between mobile device 316 and a database 318 of userID history time and location information. Database 320 may storeinformation from a set top box portal 322 which may include customer ID,the channel or program watched, the history and the time and so forth.All of these various databases of information may also feed informationto the customer database 326. The through a network such as network 300,such as is shown in FIG. 3, the system has the ability to capture andregister customer behavior and location data in real-time via TV, mobileand broadband networks.

The network 400 shown in FIG. 4 illustrates an example mechanism formatching a customer with a business advertisement. Businesses advertisethrough websites such as yellowpages.com 404. This may provideinformation on their industry, information on current services andsuppliers, location and so forth. Database 406 may include such businessadvertiser information such as their particular advertising goals,advertising information with regards to national, local or locationbased advertisements, the actual advertisements which may be presentedin various contexts such as a web browser 306 or a portable device 316or through a set top box portal 322/324. An advertiser profile filterdatabase 410 is established which may include much of the same types ofinformation essentially providing all the details about particularadvertisers. The advertiser database may also contain customer profilefilter information. For example, the advertiser information may be lessabout the advertiser per se and more of a filter for customer profileattributes that differentiate customers that will be more interested ina particular business or advertiser. In this regard, the advertiserprofile can refer more to a filter criteria for types of customers, thetypes of demographics that they are interested in targeting informationfor and so forth. Data from the customer with regards to productinterest, current behavior, historical on-line and/or physical activityand current location may also be stored in the database 406 whichinformation may be broken down based on a particular customer andinformation from a browser 306, an IPTV on a portable device such asfrom a set top box portal 322 or data from mobile device 316. As isshown, the mobile device may communicate through a WAP 314 or otherprotocol, through a portal 312 to the world wide web or through a TPGateway 310 to an IMS system. Similarly, the web browser 306communicates through portal 304 to the World Wide Web 402 and with theother various aspects of the network shown in FIG. 4. There also may bea communication from a store front 408 with the World Wide Web which mayprovide further information with regards to the particular advertiserprofile filter 410. Such data from the customer with regards to productinterest, historical activity, current behavior and/or current locationmay be matched via a database 406 to an optimal business client. Theinformation is derived from multiple devices (cell, PC, TV, etc.) thatincludes mobile devices to capture data on where a person is or theirhistorical location information. An optimal business client may utilizeinformation about various businesses (for example, various car dealersin the area) and the willingness of the business to pay for the serviceas well as the ideal location and interest of the customer. In thisregard, when the system matches a chosen business with a particular useror customer, an offer can be made to the business customer to do severalthings.

First, the offer may include the offer to sell a mobile advertisementthat is sent directly to the user that is a targeted customer based onthe current location. For example, the location may relate to whetherthe customer mobile device is within 500 yards of the store and movingat a speed which indicates that they are walking or driving. If thespeed is indicated at 60 miles an hour, then there may be anidentification that the user is in a car and not likely to stop based onthe direction they are going and how far away they are from the dealer.However, if the location information identified that they are travelingat 2 miles an hour and the likely location is along a side walk, then anadvertisement may be sent to them. Advertisements may be sent to boththe walker and the driver but at different rates because of the reducedlikelihood that the driver will stop. Next, an offer may be made to sellan IPTV advertisement targeted directly to the customer based oninterest in the product and frequency of that customer's mobile devicehaving passed the store. Thus, if the system identifies that thecustomer has passed the advertiser's relative location a certain amountof times, within a short period of time, then the system would send anIP advertisement to their set top box portal 322.

Another option may be to sell advertising across to web browser based onboth home location, which is known data from a data modem and an IPTV,and a mobile location based upon tracking of the cell phone locationrelative to the advertiser's location.

We note that customized commercials can be placed both on the IPTV 322and a mobile device 316 (which of course equals any mobile device suchas a PDA or a cell phone and so forth) which can receive a message withan advertisement or both. FIG. 5 illustrates another aspect of pushingan advertisement to the subscriber. For example, as has been notedabove, the system can know or learn who is browsing a web site 306 via aportal 304 which identifies a location and perhaps a user and theirhabits which are communicated to the World Wide Web 502. Using thatinformation, the system can push local advertisements, coupons or mapsto a user device 316 when a user enters a neighborhood. Thus, a web pageis shown as including cars and details regarding sales on cars and soforth to device 316 which may be communicated to a device through aportal 312 and/or a TP Gateway 310 using a protocol such as WAP 314protocol. Similarly, the system may also send direct advertisingprograms to a television station or to an individual via a set top boxportal 322 or watching on a TV 322. Also shown as a web page whichincludes a representation of the advertisement.

A benefit of the approach disclosed herein is that the company can selldirect personalized advertising to those who are in the particularlocation to potentially buy and have shown an interest or a potentialneed in the advertised subject matter. In addition, the information iscollected passively so active primary market research is not needed tofind out how to reach a target audience. Analytics will instruct theadvertiser what advertising will work best with which shows or mediapresentations and which could potentially do better than that byproviding, during the advertising segment, customized advertisements tothat specific customer based on a particular location such as the homeor the phone and their interest based on the analytics. Data regardingcustomer needs may also be drawn from sensing devices in appliances suchas refrigerators, stoves, cars and so forth that communicate to thenetwork. Information from sensing devices in various appliances may bepushed to a central location by the appliance itself or may be pulledvia a request from a device external to the appliance. Sensing devicesmay transmit information continuously or periodically, such as every 24hours or every 30 days. Therefore, when the engine check light comes on,that data may be sent to the network which a local repair shop may havean opening and want to offer a checkup.

As another example, assume that Julie has searched online for a promdress. The system knows that her parents have given her a cell phone andthat she watches a particular show such as The Gilmore Girls because sheuses the cell phone as the remote control on her IPTV. Even if Julie didnot use the cell phone as a remote, the system can figure out if she wasthe one watching based on probabilities of what she is likely to watchand that she is likely the only person in the house to watch The GilmoreGirls. The local dress shop, a Yellow Pages advertiser or a company thathas registered for advertisements, can send directed commercials duringthe commercial break session to Julie and a coupon to her cell phoneevery time she gets within 500 yards of the shop. Note that a companymanaging this entire process would need to use the IP network to sendindividuals their personal commercials during the commercial break timeslot rather than transmitting a general commercial like standard cablecompany advertisements.

Similarly, Julie's father, who has been web surfing for cars, may get aparticular Toyota commercial customized to the models he's been lookingat and a sales person can send him a card with a coupon every time hedrives by the dealership.

Accordingly, one of the reasons why IPTV provides improvements foradvertisers over cable TV is the use of the customer knowledge which isin real-time and can provide a complete data sample for a customer base.The system can track who is watching programming, for how long and soforth. Both geographic and demographic details may be provided. Thus,while cable customizes advertising to a particular channel in a locationarea based on demographics, IPTV provides the ability to pushadvertising campaign to a particular set top box if desired. Thus, thepresent invention enables a location-based, intelligent advertisingapproach for businesses. This finally provides a way to target and reachout to the customer as the customer approaches the store front.Available modes of communication include a TV, personal computer, voicecommunication, instant messaging, short message servicing (SMS),emailing and so forth. Thus, the customers real-time behavior andavailability which includes possibly what they are searching, theirsearch history, what time their devices were connected to the systemsuch as a TV and a cell phone, what the customer is watching, who arethe customers and the location of the customers may be matched withhistorical and data analytics to the business.

In yet another example, a business knows their desired customers, theirlocation history, their content distribution history, their businesscustomers and public data related to a customer as well as theiradvertising and business directory information associated with thebusiness customer and advertising data. Accordingly, the business canmake selections and determinations based on organized parameters foridentifying demographics, availability and location, and a currentcommunications mode to push the improved targeted advertisements to auser. As an example, assume that the user has been surfing the web forbedroom furniture, that information would end up in the customer profiledata so the next time the user drives to the mall, the Yellow Pagesdatabase may have a number of different advertisers but instead ofpicking a car dealer the system may determine you are interested infurniture and will pick the RoomStore® because of both my location andthe user's previous searching on the web indicates such an interest. Thesystem will then send an advertisement for a bedroom set that is goodfor two hours and $200 off. One aspect of the invention, the system willsend an alert to the bedroom set store giving them the details of thecustomer, their level of interest and request whether the RoomStorewants to send them an add now. There may be an option at this point tonegotiate a price in which the store determines what price they wouldoffer a product or service or the system may negotiate a price with theuser over their cell phone. Also, based on the history of the customer,the system may prioritize what is the most likely interest or productthat they would likely buy first. Thus, if the user had casually browsedat a Ford® dealership on the web but then included very intense browsingof furniture web sites then the system may determine that there is avery high value furniture advertisement that could be sent but if theyturn that down, then the system may return to the next most likelyadvertisement which would be for a Ford dealership. In this regard, thesystem includes a list of potential advertisers that are mapped to whatis most likely and appropriate for the customer. With regards to thebusiness profiles and the particular business advertisers filter, thereare various kinds of parameters that may be dynamically adjustable. Forexample, a particular company's interest in sending a particular ad tosomebody may not be static. There may be running specials that changeparameters in their profile that may make them want to pay more for thead now because of what is going on in their business. Or perhaps theiradvertising budget may be higher one month from the next. In thisregard, their business filter profile may be dynamically adjusted basedon day-to-day, week-to-week or month-to-month aspects of the business.

Therefore, the data associated with a customer that is walking by abusiness may change day to day. Presenting an advertisement to that usermay occur on that day whereas the next day the business profile maychange because particular changes occurred in the business. The systemmay also be automatically set up based on what parameters are desiredfor negotiating advertising so that a representative of the business maynot physically respond to an inquiry to an advertisement. In otherwords, there can be a software program that already indicates whetherthe business will want to respond and pay for a particular customizedadvertisement. For example, suppose that data associated with thebusiness may be related to inventory. Thus, if a user has been searchingthe internet for bunk beds and then walks by the RoomStore, if thedatabase of inventory for the RoomStore indicates that they are out ofbunk beds then the system would decline an advertisement to the userbased on the availability of the product, but could offer the customer a$200 off coupon valid starting the day of the next scheduled shipment ofappropriate bunk beds at the RoomStore. Thus, the customer profile canbe mapped to their inventory which enables either advertisements to beturned down or additional advertisement to be pushed for a particularpiece of inventory. For example, if there is an over supply of bunkbeds, then there may be advertisements pushed for individuals bothlooking for bunk beds as well as children's beds.

In another example, assume that a user is a subscriber to the New YorkTimes® online and that they have also been browsing and have a specificinterest in certain products such as furniture. Instead of on the cellphone or on the TV set the system could also do advertisement placementwithin a particular website, such as the New York Times online. In thisregard, the system may also do the negotiation with a particular websiteto determine whether they want to offer that as a service and have adual cookie, such that the system can match the two of them up and givethe New York Times a particular portion of the advertising revenue.

In this regard, a cookie is stored in the network versus on the personalcomputer such that the New York Times is an advertiser who agrees ondoing this type of advertising for its readership. As long as the useris logged in and has a cookie in the network, that browser can presentto the user certain kinds of advertisements. While cookies are clearlyalready used, what they fail to do is not provide particularadvertisement. If the cookie according to the present invention is used,it can basically track where the user has been browsing certain and canquery a particular website such as the New York Times online to matchthe New York Times with advertising space and a particular furniturestore or other business. In one aspect, a system may refer to a serviceprovider that offers a service that embodies this invention and istrusted to act on behalf of both the customer and business in ways thatthey consent to and mutually benefit from. The service provider may useexplicit or implicit information that customer or business allows butthe information is protected, used only on their behalf, according toprovided policies as a service provider may mediate. The system canbecome a match maker between the advertiser and customer because of theknowledge about the interest of the user and the desire of the New YorkTimes to provide target advertising online for their users.

In the embodiment of the system acting as a service provider or amediator, one example method includes establishing a policy with regardsto a particular customer, a business and/or a combination of bothentities that relates to the amount and type of information a customeris willing to share in order to receive advertisements according from anadvertiser. The method further includes the service provider in theprocess of assisting and mediating between the customer and theadvertiser, enforcing that policy with regards to how much informationis received from the customer and their habits and communicated throughthe advertiser. In this regard, one aspect may include wherein theservice provider receives a large amount of information that may includeclick web surfing habits, location-based information, shopping habitsand other private information of the user. In the process of enforcing apolicy with a level of privacy that the customer desires for thatinformation, the service provider can filter out, delete or otherwiseeliminate none or some of that information in compliance with the policysuch that the communication with the advertiser only includes thatinformation that is in compliance with the established policy.

In another example, further characteristics of products may be gleanedfrom customer's internet searching. For example, the system may knowquite a bit of information about what type of furniture a user's lookingfor. For example, they may never click on furniture that is white orlight oak but only dark wood products. Thus, this kind of informationmay further provide valuable details regarding the inventory of abusiness. For example, if the furniture store has a floor model that isa cherry wood bedroom set of bunk beds, can engage in a direct dialogwith a user to negotiate a sell price as the user drives or walks by.Thus, particular details regarding user interest may be used in anenhanced way to match with business interest inventory and so forth. Inthis regard, the system may provide on a cell phone a picture of thefloor model of the furniture and ask the user if they are willing to buyit for a particular price of say $599. The system may enable the user toengage in a dialog in which they will offer $499 and basically engage inan automated personalized negotiation for the sale of the products. Ofcourse ancillary information may be provided such as details regardingcondition of the product whether it is new, whether there is a warranty,delivery options, tax and so forth.

An aspect of the present invention enables a networking company to matchup advertisers with customers through different devices at differentlocations. An example of this strategy is the 3-screen strategy employedby AT&T. This is able to help customers through the web, the televisionand the cell phone and be able to link the three together. This is anext generation approach to advertising to a user. As has been notedabove, in one aspect of this 3-screen approach, a customer can use theircell phone as a remote control. The advantage of that is that the cellphone with its communication link to a network may provide informationregarding what television stations are being watched and does not haveto guess by the fact that this particular station, such as ESPN®, and itwill know which user at home is likely watching the particular station.So one particular user might get a Ford commercial while another usermay get a Volvo® commercial. A daughter may receive a totally differentcommercial altogether from a son. The same person may even receivedifferent commercials depending on the time of day, month, or year, ifdemand for an advertised product is cyclical. If different people usetheir different cell phones for controlling the television, althoughseveral people may be watching the same station, the system may know whois the controlling the station selection. In other words, the father maybe watching ESPN and get a particular commercial because the father'scell phone is being used to change stations, whereas if the son iswatching the same television program the next night, he may get acompletely different set of commercials because of the fact that hiscell phone is the one that is being used to change stations.

By linking the information with one of the Yellow Page customers, as thefather of the son drives by a Ford dealership, they may get a coupon for$500 if he stops by the next day. Because the Yellow Page advertisementinformation allows a networking company to know and to target thatinformation in the Yellow Pages, they know that they are a potentialadvertiser for a particular business. What they can then do with thispotential advertiser is tell the advertiser in advance what customersare in what area and use that as a sales tool to help sign them up forthese commercials. FIG. 6 illustrates a method embodiment of theinvention. As is shown in this figure, the method includes storing firstdata associated with online and physical activity of a plurality ofcustomers (602), storing second data associated with a current statuswith plurality of advertisers (604), matching a customer with anadvertiser based on the analysis of the first data and the second data(606) and delivering an advertisement to a device associated with thematched customers online and/or physical activity (608). As has beennoted above, there are additional features associated with the methodembodiment of the invention. For example, the online activity may be oneof web browsing, television watching or mobile device activity. Thecustomer's physical activity may be derived from multiple devices andthrough multiple sensors such as GPS, or sensors independent of GPS datasuch as, temperature sensors, fingerprint sensors, and so forth. Thephysical activity may be obtained via multiple devices and multiplesensors. The status of plurality of advertisers may comprise at leastone of the availability of special other available inventory, budget,time of day, season, and so forth. For example, there may be informationassociated with the knowledge that the user of a cell phone or of aperson browsing the web observes specific holidays may be known suchthat advertisements may be presented to the user. Furthermore, clearlysuch information may be of value to particular businesses that may caterto particular cultures or particular religions.

The analysis of the data may also include assigning a value to a portionof the first data that is associated with probable interest of acustomer in a particular product or service based on their activities.For example, if a user surfs the web only casually for a vehicle then alow probability may be assigned to that customer profile such thatrelatively speaking an auto dealership that they may be walking near maydecline to advertise to them inasmuch as they do not feel the cost forthat advertisement may be realized. Delivery of the advertisement to thematched customer's device may further include engaging in a two waydialog with a customer on a sale of the product or service in theadvertisement. If the customer is located within a certain distance ofan advertiser based on location information of the device the method mayinclude notifying the advertiser an opportunity to deliver anadvertisement to the local customer and prior to delivering theadvertisement, receiving authorization from the advertiser eithermanually or through an automatic algorithm to deliver the advertisementto the device of the local customer. The price for the authorizedadvertisement may also be negotiated based on the analysis of the firstdata. For example, if the first data indicates a low probability of theuser actually buying product inasmuch as it was only based on a casualsurfing of the internet, then the cost of the advertisement may be low.Another aspect, if the user has been surfing the web constantly for along time and has looked at numerous dark wood bunk beds, then the costfor an advertisement of a dark wood bunk bed that may be a floor modelon sale may be relatively high for a furniture store. Thus, there may bea number of parameters associated with the first data that may increaseits value in terms of being used as a basis for sending a targetedadvertisement to a customer. For example, as has been noted above, thespecificity of information associated with the customer profile (ie, thecolor of wood that the customer desires versus more general informationthat the user is interested in bedroom furniture), the intensity of thesearch of the customer profile associated with a particular product orservice and so forth. Accordingly, the price for the advertisement maybe based upon the value assigned to the portion of the first data.

Additionally, if a customer's purchasing habits indicate a preferencefor the lowest price items, that preference could be taken into accountwhen advertising a custom price to that individual. If a customerhabitually purchases items of one brand, like GE® or Phillips®, then theadvertisement may accentuate brands that are familiar to the customer.If a customer prefers luxury items at full price instead ofbargain-basement priced items, the advertisement could advertiserelevant luxury items without worrying about providing a specialdiscount or other promotion.

Embodiments within the scope of the present invention may also includecomputer-readable media for carrying or having computer-executableinstructions or data structures stored thereon. Such computer-readablemedia can be any available media that can be accessed by a generalpurpose or special purpose computer. By way of example, and notlimitation, such tangible computer-readable media can comprise RAM, ROM,EEPROM, CD-ROM or other optical disk storage, magnetic disk storage orother magnetic storage devices, or any other medium which can be used tocarry or store desired program code means in the form ofcomputer-executable instructions or data structures. When information istransferred or provided over a network or another communicationsconnection (either hardwired, wireless, or combination thereof) to acomputer, the computer properly views the connection as a non-tangiblecomputer-readable medium. Thus, any such connection is properly termed acomputer-readable medium. Combinations of the above should also beincluded within the scope of the computer-readable media.

Computer-executable instructions include, for example, instructions anddata which cause a general purpose computer, special purpose computer,or special purpose processing device to perform a certain function orgroup of functions. Computer-executable instructions also includeprogram modules that are executed by computers in stand-alone or networkenvironments. Generally, program modules include routines, programs,objects, components, and data structures, etc. that perform particulartasks or implement particular abstract data types. Computer-executableinstructions, associated data structures, and program modules representexamples of the program code means for executing steps of the methodsdisclosed herein. The particular sequence of such executableinstructions or associated data structures represents examples ofcorresponding acts for implementing the functions described in suchsteps. Program modules may also comprise any tangible computer-readablemedium in connection with the various hardware computer componentsdisclosed herein, when operating to perform a particular function basedon the instructions of the program contained in the medium.

Those of skill in the art will appreciate that other embodiments of theinvention may be practiced in network computing environments with manytypes of computer system configurations, including personal computers,hand-held devices, multi-processor systems, microprocessor-based orprogrammable consumer electronics, network PCs, minicomputers, mainframecomputers, and the like. Embodiments may also be practiced indistributed computing environments where tasks are performed by localand remote processing devices that are linked (either by hardwiredlinks, wireless links, or by a combination thereof) through acommunications network. In a distributed computing environment, programmodules may be located in both local and remote memory storage devices.

Although the above description may contain specific details, they shouldnot be construed as limiting the claims in any way. Other configurationsof the described embodiments of the invention are part of the scope ofthis invention. For example, the data used to price advertisements anddetermine whether an advertisement should be sent may be automaticallytransmitted to a central location from a defective appliance or vehicleor based on a service event such as time since last service or aproblem. Accordingly, the appended claims and their legal equivalentsshould only define the invention, rather than any specific examplesgiven.

1. A method of advertising to user devices, the method comprising:storing first data associated with on-line and physical activity of aplurality of customers, wherein the on-line and physical activity iscaptured in a plurality of devices, each device of the plurality ofdevices having at least one sensor, and wherein the physical activity isconsumer activity that is detected independent of a geographicpositioning system; storing second data associated with current statusof a plurality of advertisers; matching a customer with an advertiserbased on an analysis of the first data and the second data to yield amatched customer; and delivering an advertisement to a device associatedwith the matched customer's on-line and physical activity.
 2. The methodof claim 1, wherein the on-line activity is one of web browsing,television watching and mobile device activity.
 3. The method of claim1, wherein the first data further comprises location information of thecustomer.
 4. The method of claim 1, wherein the status of the pluralityof advertisers comprises at least one of availability of special otheravailable inventory, budget, time of day, and season.
 5. The method ofclaim 1, wherein the analysis of the first data further comprisesassigning a value to a portion of the first data that is associated witha probable interest of the customer in a particular product or servicebased on their on-line activities.
 6. The method of claim 1, whereindelivery of the advertisement to the matched customer's device furthercomprises engaging in a two-way dialog with the customer on a scale ofat least one of a product and a service in the advertisement.
 7. Themethod of claim 1, further comprising: if a customer is located within acertain distance to an advertiser based on location information from adevice, the method comprises: notifying the advertiser of an opportunityto deliver an advertisement to the local customer; and prior todelivering the advertisement, receiving authorization from theadvertiser to deliver the advertisement to the device with the localcustomer.
 8. The method of claim 7, wherein a price for the authorizedadvertisement is negotiated based on the analysis of the first data. 9.The method of claim 5, wherein a price for the advertisement is based onthe value assigned to the portion of the first data.
 10. A system foradvertising to user devices, the system comprising: a processor; a firstmodule configured to control the processor to store first dataassociated with online and physical activity of a plurality ofcustomers, wherein the on-line and physical activity is captured in aplurality of devices, each device of the plurality of devices having atleast one sensor, and wherein the physical activity is consumer activitythat is detected independent of a geographic positioning system; asecond module configured to control the processor to store second dataassociated with the current status of a plurality of advertisers; athird module configured to control the processor to match a customerwith an advertiser based on analysis of the first data and the seconddata to yield a matched customer; and a fourth module configured tocontrol the processor to deliver an advertisement to a device associatedwith the matched customers online and physical activity.
 11. The systemof claim 10, wherein the activity is one of web browsing, televisionwatching and mobile device activity.
 12. The system of claim 10, whereinthe first data further comprises location information of the customer.13. The system of claim 1, wherein the status of the plurality ofadvertisers comprises at least one of availability of special otheravailable inventory, budget, time of day, and season.
 14. The system ofclaim 10, wherein the analysis of the first data further comprisesassigning a value to a portion of the first data that is associated witha probable interest of the customer in a particular product or servicebased on their on-line activities.
 15. The system of claim 10, whereindelivery of the advertisement to the matched customers device furthercomprises engaging in a two-way dialog with the customer on a scale ofat least one of a product and a service in the advertisement.
 16. Thesystem of claim 10, further comprising a module configured to controlthe processor, if a customer is located within a certain distance of anadvertiser based on location information from a device, to notify theadvertiser of an opportunity to deliver an advertisement to the localcustomer and, prior to delivery of the advertisement, receiveauthorization from the advertiser to deliver the advertisement to thedevice with the local customer.
 17. The system of claim 16, wherein theprice for the authorized advertisement is negotiated.
 18. The system ofclaim 14, wherein a price for the advertisement is based on a valueassigned to a portion of the first data.
 19. A non-transitorycomputer-readable medium storing instructions for controlling acomputing device to advertise to user device, the instructionscomprising: storing first data associated with on-line and physicalactivity of a plurality of customers, wherein the on-line and physicalactivity is captured in a plurality of devices, each device of theplurality of devices having at least one sensor, and wherein thephysical activity is consumer activity that is detected independent of ageographic positioning system; storing second data associated withcurrent status of a plurality of advertisers; matching a customer withan advertiser based on an analysis of the first data and the second datato yield a matched customer; and delivering an advertisement to a deviceassociated with the matched customer's on-line and physical activity.20. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 19, wherein theanalysis of the first data further comprises assigning a value to aportion of the first data that is associated with a probable interest ofthe customer in a particular product or service based on their on-lineand physical activities.
 21. The method of claim 1, wherein matching acustomer with an advertiser based on the analysis of the first data anda second data also further comprises communicating only portions of thefirst data that are in compliance with the policy with an advertiser.